I managed to make it through my first week as an altar boy without any incident. I did everything almost perfectly. Sister Idalia even said so. So did Father Tom. He patted me hard on the back. I felt good about my first week in his service.
I continued to have my crush on Father Tom, although at that age that’s not what I would have called it, and he continued to usually ignore me. It was fine though; I grew to appreciate and romanticize the distance, a pattern that would only become more ingrained in my heart and mind as I grew older. Annoyingly, Father Rodney was the one who always wanted to talk. He always wanted to ask questions about school and teachers and what sports we played. I never liked serving with him. He often seemed sweaty and nervous during mass, and he was always looking over your head or to the side, never right in your eyes. But after mass, it was all chitchat and awkward jokes. I always felt trapped.
Don’t worry, this story is not headed where you think it might be headed (at least not yet). Father Rodney never touched me. As weird as he was, he never physically abused anyone to my knowledge. He just had the misfortune of seeming like a creep. That only made my affection for the stern and stoic Father Tom grow even stronger.
From fourth through eighth grade I served those priests well. I was a real Altar Star at Our Lady of Lourdes! But as my Catholic star rose, so did my place on the secular community theater stage, and I was more than happy to trade Christ for lines and better costumes. It was way more fun. My retirement from the altar came just as my interest in it disappeared, but my relationship to priests was just about to kick into high gear.
While my grade school had been run by nuns, my high school, Creighton Prep, was run by priests, Jesuit priests. Widely considered to be the “cool kids” of the Catholic Church, the Jesuits taught you to question the Church, to rebel at times. To think critically about the teachings of the Church. Some of these priests had been married in the past, some admitted to having sex (only with women), some talked about drinking and smoking. They just seemed…cool. And as my mother pointed out, there were several “Father What a Waste”s there.
Freshman year I met another Father Tom. This one was much younger, probably in his early twenties, and very handsome. He taught my Freshman Theology class with a contagious amount of enthusiasm for the Church. He pushed us all to ask questions and wasn’t afraid to tell us if he had the same questions. He took note of me early on, and saw that while I might look confident, I wasn’t. The first few weeks at Creighton Prep I often ate lunch by myself or sometimes in the bathroom, which now seems insanely unsanitary, but it was better than being seen eating alone.
Father Tom figured this out and asked me if I wanted to eat lunch with him in his office. I agreed, and I found that he had assembled a small group of other awkward freshmen who had also been eating alone. We eventually got to know one another and formed a little group of our own. Father Tom suggested at some point that we all venture out into the lunchroom together. We did and it worked. He had fully assimilated us into the general population. I was grateful to him for that. Afterward, I still visited Father Tom’s office from time to time, even after he was no longer my teacher. I had developed a strong crush on him. (At this age, I was fairly certain that’s exactly what I’d have called it.) I would often hover in his office, my sexual frustrations spilling out all over the place. I must have reeked of hormonal tension and vulnerability. To his credit, Father Tom never acknowledged my desperation, but other priests did.
Father Don was mostly retired. Old and doughy, he would totter through the halls, talking to young men about classes and sports, usually ending the conversation with a smack on the ass. He used to find me in study hall. He would bend down close to my face and whisper questions in my ear with one hand firmly planted on either my knee or my shoulder. Usually my knee. Sometimes he would just appear behind me and rub my shoulders while talking to me. He started to get bolder as the months went by and would sloppily kiss my cheek when he greeted me, always getting closer and closer to my mouth. This was around the time that I misplaced my virginity with the forty-year-old. I think Father Don sensed that.
And then there was the most disappointing priest of all—I’ll call him Father Dominic. He was probably in his sixties, but he worked out every day and remained lean and sinewy. He also took an interest in me because I did well in his classes. That’s what I thought anyway. When things really started to get complicated with the forty-year-old, I was at a total loss for adult connection and assistance. My grades were plummeting, I constantly had a stomachache, and I thought my life was crumbling around me. Having no one to talk to about my terrible relationship and feeling hopeless, I decided I would confess to Father Dominic at the next mass. He seemed so strong, but so kind, and I was hopeful that he could save me from myself.
We were made to go to mass once a week, but mass was sort of a hippie affair. It was held in our indoor quad, which was modern for the nineties, and they would start by dimming the lights. We would all sit on the floor, and it all felt very earthy and Jesus-y. Priests mostly didn’t wear robes; they just wore their casual, Daytime Priest looks, and we would listen to Toad the Wet Sprocket songs instead of singing traditional church music. It was pretty rad, but at this reconciliation mass, my surging anxiety just wouldn’t let me enjoy “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted” for the hundredth time.
Confessions were heard at the end. Again, this was not your typical confession with private rooms and curtains drawn. Priests would set up two chairs close to each other in various darkened corners of the quad, turn on music at a low volume to muddle the sound of confessions, and then you would basically just get right up in a priest’s face and whisper your sins. Sometimes he would close his eyes and grab the back of your neck firmly while you confessed. It seemed very “Roman Wrestler” at the time, but looking back it was also very “Abusive Pimp.” I waited in line to talk with Father Dominic, who was popular for confessions. I told myself that he was going to be helpful, that this was my best option.
I sat across from him in a dark corner, our knees touching. He grabbed my neck, as expected, and I started to talk. I started to try to explain what was happening with me, but I couldn’t make the words come out right. Instead, I started to cry. I was so embarrassed. Father Dominic squeezed my neck harder, and he grabbed both my hands with his free hand. His hands were like baseball mitts. We just sat there while I cried. He finally said, “It’s okay. You’ve done nothing wrong.” It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it still felt nice. He stood up and pulled me up with him. He hugged me tightly. I felt safe and heard and understood. Then, with unexpected force, he kissed me. On the lips. He muscled his tongue into my mouth and held the back of my head still. Then he released me and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. He smiled.
I walked away, stunned. How could he do that? Right in the open. In a daze I walked through the quad. No one had seen it. How was that possible? I mostly tried to avoid Father Dominic for the rest of the year, but when my mother suggested we invite him, along with some of my teachers, to my graduation party, I didn’t have the courage to say, “No, he’s a real fucking creep.” I had too many other problems at the time. So instead I said, “Great idea, Mom.” (I did successfully leave out Father Don. Since he was mostly retired, my parents didn’t really know him. I was spared a back rub, so that was a minor win.)
When the happy graduation day rolled around, Father Dominic and some other priests, including both Father Toms, celebrated my graduation with my family at a backyard barbecue. The forty-year-old was also there. (It was a real emotional minefield.) At some point, Father Dominic needed to leave, and he asked if I could show him out. I knew what was coming, but at this point, I didn’t care. I had performed and received numerous sex acts with a man I didn’t care about, and I just walked around feeling damaged. So what did I care if one more creepy man wanted to kiss me? What did it matter? We stood at my parents’ front
door and said our good-byes for the final time, and then he grabbed me by the back of the neck and forced his tongue in my mouth. I just stood there and let him. I didn’t kiss back, but I also didn’t move. He smiled at me and walked to his car. I went into our kitchen and slammed a glass of wine before going back out to the party.
Shortly after, the two Father Toms left, and each gave me a congratulatory handshake. Firmly, fatherly, without an ounce of sexuality or menace. In other words, AN APPROPRIATE GOOD-BYE FOR A GRADUATION PARTY. I was able to get the forty-year-old to leave without incident by promising to see him later. He still managed to steal a quick kiss and a grope on his way out. Again, I just let it happen.
Cleaning up after the party, I felt a little numb. I thought, How many teenage boys have to deal with this shit at their graduation parties? Am I the only one? Or was Father Dominic just taking a tour of homes and forcing French kisses on young men throughout the city? If I had to kiss a priest at my graduation party, why couldn’t it have been a priest I wanted to kiss? More important, why did I have to kiss anyone?
It was time to leave. It was time to leave high school, it was time to leave the Catholic Church, it was time to leave Omaha, and it was time to leave this idea that I had to go along with whatever older man was calling the shots, behind. I was eighteen years old, and I couldn’t be anybody’s altar boy anymore.
Boy Stuff
Priests! Forty-year-olds! Sexual awakenings! Oh my! We’ve covered so much ground already. If it isn’t already clear to you, men have always been a source of confusion for me.
It will not shock you to learn that I grew up mostly surrounded by women. I had three sisters and a mother who were usually stuck with me while my dad and brother were off doing “Boy Stuff.” My dad always said that I was too little to go with them on these manly outings, usually fishing trips or baseball games or runs to the sporting goods store. The problem was that, eventually, after years of being the “little kid,” I wasn’t so little anymore, but now I had zero interest in spending time with my dad. I’m not sure if my dad excluded me because he knew, subconsciously, that I was gay, but I have to be honest—I didn’t care. I always preferred hanging out with the girls. I didn’t want to go fishing, I wanted to go to the mall. I didn’t care about baseball games, I cared about seeing Overboard starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. My dad and I were just continuing the tradition of straight fathers keeping a safe distance from their gay sons. We certainly didn’t invent the dynamic, we just embraced it.
The only downside it had was that I was inherently uncomfortable around other boys. I didn’t speak their language. I would get nervous that they might ask me to catch or kick a sports ball or ask me a question about a WWF wrestler that I had never heard of. I avoided most other little boys my age for fear of being found out, like I was some kind of gender fraud. But then in the first grade I met Joe. He was in my class and pretty quiet. I’m not sure how our first interaction went down, but I’m sure it was when we were both hiding from the other boys aggressively playing Red Rover on our concrete playground. All of a sudden Joe was making me laugh. Then I was making him laugh. And from that day on, it was Andy and Joe all the time.
Obviously in the first grade we were not aware of, nor could we have verbalized, exactly what made us different from other boys, but there was just an unspoken understanding that we were going to do our own thing. Joe introduced me to the magic and wonder of a special lady named—Cher. There were lip-sync contests in his basement to “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves” and “Dark Lady.” (This is why stereotypes exist. Because sometimes they are true.) We also saw movies together at the local dollar movie theater. I remember watching Joe Versus the Volcano with him and then fighting about who got to be Meg Ryan when we reenacted it afterward. We also memorized the entire Judy Tenuta comedy album and would take turns reciting it. In short, Joe and I just got each other, for several years.
Then puberty kicked in and feelings got complicated. “Gay” started being a thing that we knew about. “Fag” was a name that we would often be called while together, or apart. We realized that we were different from the other boys, and our differentness while together made us look even more that way. So we broke up, more or less. I guess that was the first breakup I went through. We went to different high schools and just cut it off.
It seems odd now. There wasn’t a fight or a conversation; we just stopped speaking to each other after years of speaking daily. Days of silence became weeks, weeks became months, and then too much time had passed. It would have felt too weird to call him. (I still regret not calling him.)
As I got ready for high school, I figured that I was going to have to change the way I made friends with other guys. I quickly realized that knowing all the words to “Half-Breed” or being able to list the entire original cast of Into the Woods was not a bonus. Even though in my mind I wasn’t calling myself “gay,” I was aware that other people most definitely might call me “gay” out loud. I needed a new strategy. Fortunately, my brother Dan was a senior when I was a freshman and provided me with a strong buffer at first. He had a group of rowdy friends who all worked out in the gym after school. Since he was my ride home, I had to work out after school, too. It terrified me on two levels:
Being surrounded by sweaty guys working out might mean I would have to talk to them about “guy stuff.”
Being surrounded by sweaty guys working out might mean I would get a boner.
Luckily, in that gym, conversations were kept to a minimum and I was able to keep my eyes down and my mind on lifting weights. I was strong, so I could keep up with the other guys, which impressed them, and I wanted that approval. Especially from my brother. I was grateful to Dan for giving me what seemed at the time like a necessary safety net. I became “Little Rannells” to my brother’s “Rannells.” It was the closest we had ever been.
If the gym was where I started to get other guys to accept me, it was the school dances where I sealed the deal. I was a good dancer by mid-nineties standards, meaning I could grind. (I watched Eric Nies religiously, and I still have a soft spot in my heart for the song “Pony” by Ginuwine.) That’s when I started to get a reputation for being a ladies’ man. It made me uncomfortable because it was a lie, but it also made things easier for me at school. I don’t know why my classmates thought I was having sex with these girls, but somehow that became the rumor. I could tell it pleased my brother. I’m sure he was nervous for me walking into the testosterone-fueled zoo that was our high school, but now his little brother had the reputation of being a real slut. Lucky him and me!
The next year at school, my first without the protection and guidance of my brother, I started to find my own way. There were other guys there who were similar to me, not gay necessarily, but who had already decided that the world was much larger than Creighton Prep. I started hanging out with these guys and began to feel more comfortable at school and with myself. These guys thought I was smart and funny, and they didn’t care whether or not I was fingering a girl from Marian High School after homecoming. I started making real friends, including one who would be both a savior to me and a constant tormentor. His name was Colin.
Colin.
To this day, the first name I associate with the word “handsome.” This Colin, MY Colin, looked like he had walked straight out of a Jane Austen novel. He was tall, with kind eyes, dark curly hair, and a jaw that could cut glass. He floated above everyone at that school. Not like he thought he was better than everyone, but like he was so confident that nothing fazed him at all. He was always cheerful, easygoing, warm. He never had teen acne or bad hair. He was just…perfect.
I had long admired him from afar but never had the balls to actually speak to him. Even though these were my years as Omaha’s top teen model, I regularly felt like Sloth from The Goonies if I was anywhere near Colin. Striking up a conversation with him seemed impossible. But one day, HE approache
d ME. He had seen my picture in the Omaha World Herald LIVING! section, promoting a local dinner theater production of West Side Story. He said he thought that it was “cool” that I was doing that. Meaning that I was cool. Cool, Daddy-O. (I practically did a high kick!) Was this a dream? Was I dying? Amazingly, I kept my composure and managed to have a full conversation with Colin. I don’t remember the details because I was too busy marveling at the fact that he didn’t have pores and his teeth were perfect. His father was an orthodontist, but I was certain he had been born with those perfect teeth.
Eventually Colin’s handsomeness, while still impressive, didn’t hold the same power over me. I was able to talk to him like a human, ask questions, not lose consciousness when he was near. We both liked Jack Kerouac, we both wanted to move far away from Omaha, we both wanted to explore the world. We started going to movies, the mall, lunches off campus. I even sat through an entire baseball game with him. Years went by and we remained close like this. In the back, and usually the front, of my mind, I hoped that maybe something more might be happening. The slightest touch, a look that went on too long, might mean something deeper was at play. But I certainly wasn’t going to make the first move. It was too dangerous.
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